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REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

33. Surtees's History of Durham, Vol. II.; continued from p. 138.

We cheerfully proceed to fulfil our promise of laying before our Readers some extracts from this valuable Work.

"HILTON CASTLE stands low and sequestered (according to the exact import of the original name Peltun), in the vale of Wear. The centre only of the present structure is ancient. The East front exbibits an oblong square tower rising above a portico of modern Gothic work. The West front has in the centre the great entrance, or gatehouse, perhaps nearly in the state in which it was reared in the reign of Richard II. The gateway is defended by square projecting turrets, with banging parapets, exactly resembling the coeval architecture of Lumley. Two round towers of later date connect the centre with uniform wings of completely modern architecture.

A view of the West or Armorial entrance to Hilton Castle, drawn and very delicately engraved by Mr. Blore, is given in the Volume.

After describing the Arms on this front, and those on the right and left flanking towers, Mr. Surtees thus details the Arms on the East frout:

"Within a plain shield the arms of Hilton only. Crest, on a close helmet, Moses's head in profile, in a rich diapered mantle, the horns not in the least radiated, but exactly resembling two poking sticks. Above all, in bold relief, a stag couchant, collared and chained."

A view of this East front, as it ap peared in 1785, is annexed (sce Plate II). A more complete delineation of the curious arms, presented in miniature on the front of the Castle, is also introduced in the adjoining column. The Cuts are borrowed from Mr. Surtees's Work.

However ancient and simple a coat the Hilton bearing may appear, the Argent field and bars of Azure, yet it certainly was not the first armorial distinction adopted by the family. Alexander de Hilton, in 1172, seals his grant out of Hilton-mill, to St. Peter's of Wearmouth, with a huge demi-lion passant, so manufactured as to exhibit the leonine lash of the tail without the hind quarters of the noble brute. The commou bearing, whenever first used, appears on a seal in 1328; and in 1414 William de Hilton exhibits a splendid seal with his shield of arms suspended on a tree; two conies, betwixt the shield and legend, look rather like ornaments than supporters. The arms sculpGENT. MAG. March, 1821.

tured on Hilton Chapel are supported by Stags; the later Barons uniformly used two Lions (Azure).

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"I can hardly even guess at the origin of the strange crest; Moses's head glorified or horned. Cornuta erat ejus facies. Another crest (or Cognizance?) a stag in a

golden

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golden chain appears on Hilton Castle; East front; and to this stag there belongs a tradition, that it was granted to the family, I forget why, by the Conqueror, in whose service a certain fabulous Lancelot Hilton is said to have died at Feversham.

"This may not be an improper place to say a word or two on the title of Baron, so constantly bestowed on the ancient house of Hilton, and which has been adopted without scruple in the text. In any country where the term Nobility is not exclusively confined to the Peerage, the Hiltons would have ranked as Noblesse in the strictest sense of the word, yet I believe the title of Baron had no reference to any Peerage supposed to be created by one or more summons to Parliament in the reign of Edward I. or Ill. but was given by the general courtesy of the country, either from respect to the long and immemorial existence of the family in a gentle state, long before the creation of Barons either by writ or summons, or else with reference to the rank which the Hiltons undoubtedly held of Barons of the Bishopric, sitting with a sort of Provincial Peerage in the great Council of their Ecclesiastical Palatine, and possessing some degree of controlling or consulting power, which can now be very ill understood or defined, though there is ample evidence of the actual existence of such a Chamber of Peers, in many Episcopal Charters and other remaining documents."

"One proof of the high antiquity of the Hiltons is the number of popular traditions which, in various ways, account for their origin. There is no improbability (though it is not matter proven) in supposing that the local establishment of the family extended above the Norman æra ; yet it might be difficult to say which coat Adam Hilton, the liege of King Athelstan, caused to be sculptured above the portal of St. Hilde, or to be engraved on the massy silver crucifix which he presented to the Abbess of the Peninsula. Romanus, the Knight of Hilton (whose very name is unknown to these early Romancers), might be Saxon, Dane, or Norman, or, according to a wild legend alluded to in Sharpe's Hartlepool, (p. 167,) he might with equal ease spring from a Northern Rover, who wooed and won a fair young Saxon Dame with all her lands and towers,' under the disguise of one of Odin's Ravens. The account of the matter given below is certainly not offered as any portion of the Hillons' Evidence. It should, however, be recollected, to say nothing of Leda and such by-gone times, that the Ascanian Princes of Saxony sprung from the loins

* One tradition is narrated in such pleasing lines, that we have transferred it to our Poetical Department.

[March,

of a Bear, and, which is more to the purpose, that the Staffords of Buckingham chose to descend from a white Swan"

A very copious account, and ample Pedigrees, of the Hylton Family are given, accompanied by Evidences, Charters, Wills, &c.

A general West view of the Castle, drawn by J. M. W. Turner, esq. R.A. and engraved by Rawle, is contribut ed by its late noble possessor, the Earl of Strathmore.

The grounds to the North and East have been laid out in slopes and terraces, at the highest point of which, to the North, stands an elegant small Chapel."

"Several of the turrets of Hilton are still crowned with human figures, some in grotesque attitudes, others as combatants, &c in the usual manner; a custom, which if it were not intended for mere ornament, was perhaps practised to deceive an approaching enemy, who could hardly tell, at some distance, whether the garrison were on the alert or not."

The melancholy fate of this antient and honourable family will be read with interest.

"In 1332 and 1355, Alexander de Hilton had summons to parliament, which was never repeated in any of his descendants. After a series of twenty descents, stretching through five centuries, the family was nearly ruined, by the improvi dent posthumous generosity of Henry Hilton, esq. who appears to have been so much under the influence both of vanity and melancholy, as might, in these days of equity, have occasioned serious doubts as to the sanity of his disposing mind. This gentleman had several years before, on some disgust, deserted the seat of his ancestors, and lived in obscure retirement, first at the house of a remote kinsman at Billinghurst in Sussex, and afterwards at Mitchel-grove, where he died. By will dated 26 February, 1640-1, he devised the whole of his pateroal estate for ninetynine years, to the Lord Mayor and four senior Aldermen of the City of London, on trust to pay, during the same term, 241. yearly, to each of thirty-eight several Parishes or Townships in Durham, Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex, and Newcastle on Tyne; 281. per annum to the Mayor of Durham, and 50%. per annum to the Vicar of Monk Wearmouth: he then leaves an

annuity of 100%. to his next brother Robert Hilton, and to his heirs; and 50%. per annum to his brother John Hilton, which last sum is to cease, if he succeed to the larger annuity as heir of Robert: all the residue and increase of his rents he gives to the City of London, charging them to bind out yearly five children of his own

kindred

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kindred to some honest trade; and further he desires them to raise 4000/. out of the rents, to remain in the City Chamber during ninety-nine years, and the interest to be applied in binding out orphan children born on the manors of Ford, Biddick, and Barmston. After the expiration of that term, he devises the whole of his estates, with the increased rents, and also the same 4000l. to his heir at law, provided he be not such an one as shall claim to be the issue of the testator's own body. He then gives several legacies to his servants, and to the family of Shelley of Michell-grove; declares that he has 3000, on good houds in London; appoints the Lady Jane Shelley to be his Executrix, and desires burial in St. Paul's Cathedral, under a fair tumbe like in fashion to the tumbe of Dr. Dunne,' for which purpose he leaves 1000l. to his Executrix, who never complied with the injunction.

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Henry Hilton left a widow (not named in his will.) who re-married Sir Thomas Smith, said to have been an active and intriguing man, of considerable influence during the Usurpation. Robert Hilton, the next brother to Henry, survived him only a few months, and he also left a widow, whose second busbaud, Sir Thomas Hallyman, obtained in compensation of ber dower a life estate in the manor of Ford. The Will itself produced, as was most likely, litigations and chancery suits in abundance; and under all these circumstances, the estate, or rather the shadow of the estate, vested in John Hilton, the seventh and sole surviving brother of Henry. The civil wars burst out in the same year 1641, and John Hilton periled the reliques of his inheritance in the royal cause. Himself and his son bore the commissions of Colonel and of Captain in the Marquis of Newcastle's army. The estate of Hilton, placed exactly between the royal army and the Scots under Lesley, was plundered and wasted by both parties; and. on the final ruin of the royal cause, the Hiltons, included in the list of malig nants, were totally disabled from struggling at law or equity, either with the rebel City of Londou, or with the two Knights who had espoused the worse, then the better cause. The wonder is, that from such a state of things the family ever emerged at all; but the younger John Hilton (who succeeded to the claims of his father in 1658) seems to have possessed a share of prudence and quiet perseverance very unusual in a ruined Cavalier. The very liti gations of Sir Thomas Smith with the City Chamber, though they tore the estate in pieces, whilst the heir starved, had eventoally a favourable effect. The Citizens of London, who derived very little direct advantage from the will of their singular benefactor, were wearied out with the con

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test; and after the Restoration an amicable decree was pronounced, by which the possession of the estates was restored to the heir, on condition that he should discharge all the particulars of the trust created by the will of Henry Hilton, should make regular payment of the several parochial charities, and satisfy the claims of the two dowagers. Under these sore incumbrances Mr. Hilton took the management of his own property; but the rents, wasted as the estate had been for twenty years, were totally inadequate to the charges; and it was found necessary to reduce the whole of the payments one third, in proportion to the actual state of the rent-roll, leaving still a very sufficient burthen to exercise the prudence and patience of the family, both which useful qualities they seem to have possessed in a very exemplary degree.

"From this period the ancient Barons of Hilton, no longer distinguished by extended possessions or extraordinary inAluence, retreated, without degradation of blood or of honour, into the quiet ranks of private gentry. Three successive chiefs of Hilton were not more respected for their ancient and undoubted descent, than for the prudent and unostentatious simplicity with which they supported the fallen fortunes of their house, without meanness, and without vain regret or misplaced pride. Their names do not even occur in the list of Parliamentary Representation, and they received rather than claimed from the general courtesy of the country the acknowledged rank of the first untitled gentry of the North, of Noblesse without the peerage. The last Baron, a man of mild and generous disposition, though of reserved habits, is still remembered with a mingled sentiment of personal respect and of that popular feeling, which even ill conduct can scarcely extinguish, towards the last representative of a long and honourable line, unstained by gross vice, and unsullied by dishonour."

Amongst other Baronial appendages, Mr. Hilton was one of the latest gentlemen in England who kept a domestic fool. The Baron on one occasion, on his return from London, quitted his carriage at the Ferry, and amused himself with a homeward saunter through his own woods and meadows; at Hilton foot bridge he encountered his faithful fool, who, staring on the gaudy laced suit of his patron, made by some false Suthron tailor, exclaimed, "Wha's fule now?"

"John Hilton, esq. (great-grandson of John in 1658,) died 25th Sept. 1746. By will dated 6 Nov. 1739, he devised all his estates to his nephew, Sir Richard Musgrave, of Hayton Castle, bart, on condi

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